New MacBook Neo vs Existing Intel MacBook Pro

[loopy123]

Based on your needs you would be fine with a Neo and the latest version of Office for Mac and just learn how to use the new charting and forget about Windows.

If you MUST have Windows, get a Mac with at least 16GB and the latest version of Parallels with Windows 11 ARM. It runs Windows really well and can run most x86 legacy Windows software quite speedily. It will always be able to do that as x86 emulation is built into Windows 11 ARM and has nothing to do with Rosetta and Apple dropping Rosetta support in the future.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

If you MUST have Windows, get a Mac with at least 16GB and the latest version of Parallels with Windows 11 ARM. It runs Windows really well and can run most x86 legacy Windows software quite speedily. It will always be able to do that as x86 emulation is built into Windows 11 ARM and has nothing to do with Rosetta and Apple dropping Rosetta support in the future.

I haven't used Parallels for a while but I just looked again based on the above, and, observed the following statement on the Parallels website: "Access Windows Excel features on Mac". I'm wondering exactly what that means and what is required to make that work. But, it addresses a particular complaint I have heard about recent Excel for Mac on Apple Silicon, which is the missing some of the Macro/VB functionality.

 

[conmee]

That is not true. Parallels features hardware-accelerated OpenGL when running Windows 11 apps on a M series Mac.

Re-read my post. There is no graphics acceleration for virtualized macOS with Parallels or VMware Fusion or UTM. Parallels supports OpenGL and DirectX in Win11 on both Intel and Apple Silicon. In fact, I have Area 51 (2005), Tron 2.0 (2003), and Serious Sam (2002) all using DirectX running on virtualized Win11ARM in Parallels 26 on Tahoe.

Having said that, my response was part of a longer discussion about virtualizing older macOS versions on Intel Macs. Parallels makes use of Apple’s “Paravirtualized Graphics Framework” on Intel Macs to speed up graphics in virtualized macOS (Big Sur and later), but it does not provide hardware level graphics acceleration to make 32-bit Mac gaming viable on virtualized Mojave.

 

[conmee]

Based on your needs you would be fine with a Neo and the latest version of Office for Mac and just learn how to use the new charting and forget about Windows.

If you MUST have Windows, get a Mac with at least 16GB and the latest version of Parallels with Windows 11 ARM. It runs Windows really well and can run most x86 legacy Windows software quite speedily. It will always be able to do that as x86 emulation is built into Windows 11 ARM and has nothing to do with Rosetta and Apple dropping Rosetta support in the future.

As mentioned earlier in the thread, Win11ARM does not support or come with NTVDM so it won’t run any 16-bit apps and won’t install a fair amount of 32-bit apps that use 16-bit installers or DLL’s. Office 2000 (which OP wants to continue to use) is a 16-bit app and will not install or run on Win11ARM.

But the rest I agree with. I am using Win11ARM in Parallels 26 and it runs faster than x86 Win11 on my company Dell Latitude. 🙂 I’ve got some old school games and a handful of x86 apps that run flawlessly. It’s one of the reasons I was finally able to move on from my Intel MBP. Big fan of Win11ARM and its x86 emulation. 🙂

 

[conmee]

I haven't used Parallels for a while but I just looked again based on the above, and, observed the following statement on the Parallels website: "Access Windows Excel features on Mac". I'm wondering exactly what that means and what is required to make that work. But, it addresses a particular complaint I have heard about recent Excel for Mac on Apple Silicon, which is the missing some of the Macro/VB functionality.

Parallels is just highlighting this pain point to get folks to give Parallels a try. You’ll need a copy of Parallels, a copy of Win11 and an activation key, and Microsoft Office/Excel for Windows with activation key.

If you visit the Parallels site, they say toward the end to build a Win11ARM virtual machine and install Windows versions of Office/Excel in the virtual machine so you don’t miss out on any Windows-exclusive features. If you don’t want to boot up a full instance of Win11 every time just to use Excel, you can turn in Coherence mode. This allows you to add Windows apps to the Dock and run Excel just like a macOS app. It will load in the background the bare minimum Windows files necessary to run Excel and it’ll look kinda like a macOS app. You’ll be able to run it in a window or full screen with all your Mac apps. Just a way for Parallels to hide Windows.

I’ll take some screenshots a bit later to show you what it looks like.

 

[conmee]

@BSDnostalgia I usually run Win11 in Full Screen mode and just use two finger swipe on Magic Mouse (or Magic Trackpad) to bounce between macOS and Windows. Super convenient. But if you want to just work in the macOS desktop and not feel like you're hopping between two different OSes, then you can use Parallels Coherence Mode.

In Coherence Mode you can add System Tray icons to the macOS Menu Bar. You can also access Windows Start from the Dock as well as all the apps/folder from Windows as a folder in the Dock. The nice thing about Coherence is that you can have Windows apps and macOS apps running side by side with full cut-and-paste functionality etc. So if you are working on some numbers in Numbers, you can copy and paste them right into Windows version of Excel as if it were a native app and so forth.

If you dislike Windows, but really need the Windows version of Excel or some other Windows app, but don't want to see Windows, this is the way to go. The necessary Windows frameworks are loaded in the background and if you don't want to, you'll never have to see Windows. Of course, any Windows apps you run will have the Windows versions of maximize/minimize/close/menu ribbon. But it will also integrate with and use the macOS Menu Bar. So there will be settings available just as if you were using a macOS version of Excel (how Microsoft has both its own menu/title/ribbon AND also uses macOS Menu Bar which is ridiculous but is what it is).

P.S. Just to repeat, in order to make this work you still have to build a full Win11ARM virtual machine and install the Windows apps you want in the virtual machine, including any activations needed. But once you have a fully functional Windows 11 virtual machine with apps, just turn on Coherence Mode and away you go.

 

[BSDnostalgia]

Just so I'm clear on this, you are, or at least can, run the Intel version of Excel with whatever helpers the Visual Basic stuff needs using the builtin x86-64-Windows11 emulation layer built in to Win11ARM, correct?

 

[conmee]

Just so I'm clear on this, you are, or at least can, run the Intel version of Excel with whatever helpers the Visual Basic stuff needs using the builtin x86-64-Windows11 emulation layer built in to Win11ARM, correct?

I don't use VB and developer tools, but they are present. So I believe the answer is yes. According to Microsoft, the core Office apps are available as native ARM64 so when you install Office on Win11ARM Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook are not emulated but running natively - same exact code as x86 Office just compiled for ARM. Access and Publisher are the exceptions and they run well in emulation on Win11ARM. There is also a compatibility component allowing older COM extensions and plugins for Excel to install and run normally if they aren't available natively for ARM (Microsoft calls this ARM64EC). In Task Manager you can see Excel is ARM64 with x64 compatibility.

I'd say give it a shot. Build a Win11ARM virtual machine, install Excel, and open some of your spreadsheets/scripts/macros and see if everything works as it should.

 

[Scott Baret]

I bit the bullet and traded in the MacBook Pro yesterday. The values had gone up to $220 for trade-in for my model and there was an indigo in stock at one of the local Apple stores, so I set out on my lunch break to get it.

My impressions: I'm not disappointed at all. I know some people warned me that going from a Pro to a Neo would be like going from a Cadillac to a Chevy, but this is like going from a 1985 Fleetwood to a 1997 Malibu--a much newer and more refined platform overall even if it's missing a few luxuries like the illuminated keyboard or four ports instead of two.

My first impressions:

1. It's snappy. Part of this is likely because it doesn't have six years of gunk on it like the old one did, but I feel like going to Apple Silicon was huge at this point.

2. The guy at the Apple Store was shocked that I was still running Ventura on the MacBook Pro and for some reason was even more shocked that I had "natural scrolling" turned off. For someone who has been with the Mac for over 30 years, there is nothing natural about "natural scrolling". (For what it's worth, it also took me until earlier this week to get the iPad to iOS 26 and I only did that because it needed a reset; my iPhone is still on 18). He was also shocked that I don't use FaceID on the phone and don't even use a passcode.

3. The Neo's battery life has been great so far. I have yet to charge it and I've been doing some heavy lifting on it, like getting all of my software installed.

4. Speaking of which, WHY does Microsoft make it so hard to just find the Office installer? I bought Office 2024 with the Mac, getting the license at the Apple Store, and it was darn near impossible to find the installer. Getting it working was also worse than trying to set up an old DOS machine. It's functional now.

5. Seriously, what's with the overly bright default background on the Neo? One of the most satisfying moments was the minute I put up a different background.

6. Without looking, it feels thicker than my Pro was. I don't mind that. To be fair, I used to take a Clamshell iBook everywhere, so this is nothing compared to where I was 25 years ago.

7. I feel like most of the first two hours with this machine have consisted of changing over half the settings and trying to figure out Office's awful setup...

We will wait and see on Excel. I do have other computers that can run Excel 2000, 2003, or 97 if need be.

 

[conmee]

I’d take the ‘85 Fleetwood over any of the 90s Chevys. You’re not giving the Neo enough credit. It’s at least a 1988 Cadillac Cimarron when GM went with the “compact” front-wheel drive 4-cylinder Cadillac platform. 🙂

 

[bzgnyc2]

5. Seriously, what's with the overly bright default background on the Neo? One of the most satisfying moments was the minute I put up a different background.

It seems everyone these days feels the need to cosplay main character energy. So movie soundtracks are louder than the dialog, every app's notifications are more important than whatever you are doing, and all news stories are breaking news. I'm waiting for breaking news announcement that nothing has changed in the last 10 minutes. Which would actually be welcome news but notwithstanding when everything is signal nothing is signal.

But to your point, yeah after installing a new OS, I now have to spend 20 minutes going through every option to turn off all these garish assaults on the senses. Probably landing not far off from what Apple would have shipped as defaults 10 years ago. Fortunately it's still mostly within our control.

 

[Scott Baret]

After a few days with the Neo, I still believe I made the right call. My only real complaint is the fact there are absolutely zero ports on the right side of the computer. If they wanted two ports, they could have put one on either side (I seem to remember some old Airs were like that). Otherwise, I'm very happy with it. The battery life is outstanding; I may not have much to compare it to, but it definitely has been a huge boost in terms of what I can get done with it.

 

[eltoslightfoot]

After a few days with the Neo, I still believe I made the right call. My only real complaint is the fact there are absolutely zero ports on the right side of the computer. If they wanted two ports, they could have put one on either side (I seem to remember some old Airs were like that). Otherwise, I'm very happy with it. The battery life is outstanding; I may not have much to compare it to, but it definitely has been a huge boost in terms of what I can get done with it.

The reason they don’t have any ports on the right side of the Neo is because the iPhone board it is based on can’t support that many ports. And Apple just likes pretending that side doesn’t exist —see MacBook Airs.

 

[Scott Baret]

The reason they don’t have any ports on the right side of the Neo is because the iPhone board it is based on can’t support that many ports. And Apple just likes pretending that side doesn’t exist —see MacBook Airs.

Come to think of it, they've done that for a long time with the ports. The iBook G3 is a good example, and this was back when wired mice were the norm. Until I got a USB hub to use as an extender, I had to use the mouse with my left hand because the cord was short and the port was on the left. (To be fair the entire right side of that computer was a CD-ROM drive and a charging port).